Regrets

All posts tagged Regrets

Round of applause, please; I’m actually posting weekly! Granted this is the first time it has happened, but it’s all about the baby steps, right? It’s all about doing the work.

So without further self-aggrandizing glory, or further do, here’s this week’s writing prompt. I’d like to thank Cristina Hartmann who wrote a beautiful, poignant article on her deaf experience. Her willingness to be so honest and so personal helped me through writer’s block and taught me to be open-minded through validating the idea that there is a common human experience no matter the extenuating circumstances.

Enjoy.

WEEKLY WRITING PROMPT #29: A deaf woman undergoes a surgical procedure that enables her to hear for the first time.

The surgery had been an absolute success, one worthy of being documented in some elite medical journal that was never actually read but given a prestigious place on a bookshelf of some pretentious professional. But Monica had no idea that she was a medical marvel; not yet, anyway. She was still floating somewhere in the dark ether of anesthesia, blissfully unaware of the momentous, tragic changes in her life that had occurred while she was sleeping peacefully.

Monica had been born deaf, an innocent victim of her mother’s sins. Monica’s mom had been a pretty heavy drug user in the very beginning of her pregnancy and though her daughter had been the reason she finally got clean, it was too little too late. The damage was done and in her youngest years, Monica was constantly shushed so that the toddler wouldn’t make noise at inappropriate times. How was Monica to know she was even making sounds, let alone when she was being shushed? The kid couldn’t hear, couldn’t hear a damn thing, and so Monica struggled to learn American Sign Language. Doing so allowed Monica to meet many, many different people and in her important, formative years, she signed with adults, and that early exposure to maturity and a cynic sort of wisdom only vaguely hidden behind smiles that didn’t quite meet the eyes (because she was still a child after all) indelibly shaped Monica’s personality. She had always been an old soul – polite, conservative and comfortable even in the strange solitude that came with being unable to hear.

Being comfortable wasn’t always synonymous with being complacent, so when Monica had been referred to the Cochlear Implant Center, she continued on that journey to meet with an audiologist, and when her medical history had been sufficiently reviewed and all the necessary medical tests had been conducted, Monica willingly moved on to the last phase, which involved a psychiatric evaluation. In the end, all had been golden and she was approved for cochlear implant surgery.

Monica remembered her hands twitching nervously as the surgeon explained the procedure. She thought it was nice he wanted her to be informed, but Monica was letting most of it simply fall away. She was too nervous to concern herself with the details of the surgery because it wasn’t the impending incision that troubled her; it was the aftermath. She had been relieved to discover that she would still be unable to hear like a hearing person, and that the implant could be turned off so that Monica could effectively be deaf again. The thing Monica hated most about being deaf was that it was not her choice; taking a wide view of the thing, Monica supposed you could say it had been her mother’s choice, but unwittingly so. Either way, Monica liked the idea that being able to hear was her choice, very much her choice. If she longed for the familiar soothing and peaceful silence she had lived in for so long, Monica could go there any time she liked. That thought had calmed her enough to go ahead with the procedure.

Surprisingly, the surgery was no big deal; Monica learned that the majority of patients go home the same day, and that the surgery only lasted between two to three hours. After minimal hair shaving and a small incision (the aerated bone behind her ear had to be removed so the device could be implanted), she’d go home and remove the dressings the next day, standing in front of her bathroom mirror, breathing deeply and listening hard for anything, anything at all.

What a change it would be; good or bad, it would certainly be different.

So as far as anyone was concerned, Monica should have been on her way home. But her shit luck reared its ugly head once more, and there had been a minor complication. The procedure had caused facial nerve stimulation, and they wanted to keep Monica longer (overnight) for observation, to make sure the damage wasn’t permanent. The surgeon would tell her, with an overly enthusiastic smile and tone to let her know her optimism should not in any way shape or form be deterred, when she woke from the anesthesia but even that was taking longer than it should. A surgeon couldn’t be expected to wait around all day, could he? Certainly not; time to wait around was not a luxury in the business of saving lives.

Monica was therefore all alone when she began to stir. Well, all alone if one discounted her roommate, which it seemed most people did. He was a young man essentially being kept comfortable until he inevitably kicked the bucket. The car accident had ravaged his insides; so much vital stuff had been bruised and was bleeding and it was just a God awful mess. The next of kin had been alerted, but there wasn’t enough time (was there ever) and that poor young man was going to die alone and he was going to do so in a matter of moments.

“I’m so scared,” he breathed. It took a lot, to make noise, to push enough air through his throat to vibrate his vocal chords. It was a lot of work, a lot of effort, but it had to be done. Everyone deserves to have a final say, and he was going to have him, goddammit.

Monica’s eyes shot open. She heard it; she heard it. It startled her awake, the husky voice wracked with pain and despair, but it was the only voice she had ever heard. She was hearing. She was smiling and tears were freely pouring. She hadn’t processed what the voice said exactly, but for now, it was enough that it had been audible.

“It’s not fair,” the voice croaked. “I didn’t do anything wrong, man. I was wearing my seatbelt. I was sober.” There was a deep, shuddering breath. “How can there be nothing that they can do? How can this be it?” The voice broke near the end, cracked into a million desperate shards that had nowhere to land, nothing to shatter against.

The voice asked questions Monica was unable to answer, not only because she didn’t know how to intellectually, but because she didn’t know how to physically. She had years of speech therapy to go before she’d be able to effectively communicate without using her hands. Any sound she attempted now would be unsettling at best, impossible for the man suffering beside her to discern. Her smile had faded, had done so quickly, and something akin to indescribable sorrow had contorted her features to something decidedly less than beautiful.

“It’s karma,” the man said. He waited a moment, for an absolution perhaps. Maybe he was waiting for a kind soul to argue otherwise, but there was nothing. “It has to be karma,” he continued. “I knew she was drunk but she was smiling and laughing and I never heard no.” There was sharp intake of breath. “I swear to God, she never told me no. She never asked me to stop. I was young and…” his voice trailed off. Monica didn’t think he would speak again, and she was okay with that. She didn’t like playing priest in this warped confessional. How could the first voice she ever heard belong to a dying man, a dying man that felt the need to confess the worst thing he’d ever done? If he wanted to talk about what was unfair, Monica was game.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. “I don’t want to die.”

Monica shut her eyes tight, letting the tears roll freely. What else could she do?

“In the stories, though, it’s worth it. Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.”
– Neil Gaiman, The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a terrible adult. It seems that I never fold laundry, I owe everyone money, I always forgot to check the mail, and I’m constantly drinking spoiled milk. On good days, I am able to convince myself that these minor defeats give me character and make me interesting; they give me something to write about.

And I keep trying, because that’s the point, right? The point is to keep trying.

My author page on Facebook has been experiencing more activity than usual, and I want to capitalize by composing a riveting, engaging blog post, but I’ve been lacking inspiration. I’ve also been lacking motivation. I haven’t written anything. I haven’t graded anything.

Last week was rough.

My twin sister returned to rehab a week ago today. I try to remind myself that relapse, whether or not anyone likes it, is a part of recovery. I force myself to consider the alternative, about where else she’d be if she wasn’t trying to get help. Neither scenario does much to lessen the disappointment, the frustration, the anger, or the sadness. It’s a gross, turbulent mess of emotions that I’m trying to compartmentalize and shrink so that they can be better processed and dealt with appropriately. But it’s hard; it’s so hard.

But I keep trying, because that’s the point, right? The point is to keep trying.

“Because, perhaps, if this works, they will remember him. All of them will remember him. His name will … become synonymous with … love. And my name will be forgotten. I am willing to pay that price ….”
– Neil Gaiman, The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury

That wasn’t entirely true, what I said earlier, about not having written anything. I’ve written some things, but nothing I’ve been thrilled with or necessarily proud of. I worry my writing – the themes, the characters, the dialogue – is repetitive. I worry I’ve written all of this before, and that might be because the object of my affection is every character I’ve ever written, is the epitome of every romantic fantasy I’ve ever had, and so it all comes back to him in one way or another. What’s especially troubling, and simultaneously amazing about being a writer, is that I invented this man before he appeared before me in the flesh (talk about a god complex, huh?). In college, before I had ever met this man, I started a novel and wrote, “He couldn’t watch her fawn over another man, couldn’t tell her how he felt because it was too late and he’d ruin it for her.” Swap the genders of the pronouns and I am my own prophet. It’s crazy; I said everything I should have said to him years before I met him. How depressing.

I wrote a poem, too.

I put the kettle on for tea
and pulled my leggings from the dryer
I hope there’s time for breakfast
before I go about setting the world on fire

Burning devastation – turn it all to heat and ash
There’s something freeing about going mad
To face the world with wild, reckless abandon
To give in, to be selfish, to be ignorant and bad

Consequences will come swift and sure
Rolling quickly like so many rocks downhill
But it could absolutely all be worth it
For the liberation that accompanies the kill

What does being so reserved get you,
maybe a curtsy and a smile?
None of the mystery, intrigue and danger
that can go along with being vile

But I don’t think I’d really go so dark. It’s easy to not consider anyone or anything else other than my own wants and desires, but that doesn’t make it right. It’s difficult to do what is right, at least sometimes.

But I keep trying, because that’s the point, right? The point is to keep trying.

Life is a fleeting, funny thing- I think we can all agree on that. Last night, I enjoyed some drinks and some nostalgia with wonderful friends. As the night ended at a diner, the way nights in Jersey so often do, a waitress who had seated herself at the table beside ours went into some kind of diabetic shock. My friend Raina is a nurse, and without hesitation, she rushed to the woman’s side and did all she could to keep her alert and comfortable until the paramedics arrived. I watched her with a serious sense of awe, of how cool, calm, collected, and confident she was. I was amazed that such a wonderful and beautiful human being could friends with someone like me, who did contributed nothing to the situation other than stunned silence and stares.

WEEKLY WRITING PROMPT #7: “A woman gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she gets hired to sing backup for a famous musician.”

Emily was ten years too old – was there really a logical reason for someone to roam this Earth for ninety years? What could there possibly be left to see or hear or do? She had laughed until she cried, cried until she had to laugh, been heartbroken, believed herself to be infinite and immortal, believed everything to be meaningless, and then believed everything to be poignantly meaningful. She had run the gamut from wildly and recklessly passionate to dangerously and stubbornly apathetic. Had she not lived through some serious shit? Had she not also merrily sailed through years of calm? What could possibly be left? Emily was ready for death.

Ah, but that was horse shit and she knew it. The thought of going to sleep and never waking up still terrified her in a way that was inexplicable. It was a sweeping, overwhelming kind of horror that could not be sufficiently articulated. So, Emily reasoned, if it could not be explained, then what good was there in thinking about it? Emily looked for something else to occupy her mind and she settled on the weather. The snow outside was falling steadily and despite feeling hellishly cranky, Emily thought it beautiful to look at. She watched the weather silently and calmly with her head turned to the side on the large but thin pillow. She allowed herself to wonder, but only for a moment, how many more snowfalls she’d see, but she shut her eyes against the thought of her inevitable and impending passing. She prayed for some kind of relief, for some kind of distraction, and in walked the nurse.

The nurse had spent many nights with Emily, perhaps pulling the short straw and getting stuck with the cranky old woman through horrendous hours, hours where the human body was meant to be soundly sleeping. The nurse was always obnoxiously cheerful and pleasant, which annoyed Emily who only pretended to be crotchety enough to pray for death. Emily was also annoyed because the nurse was a young man. Men, in Emily’s learned and wise and venerable opinion, were meant for manual labor and hard work, not for soothing and caring and all that womanly business. Emily never exchanged more than a few words with the young man, and she only relented and did so because of his eyes.

The young man had absolutely phenomenal eyes. There were a unique shade of emerald that a human being is blessed to see only once in a lifetime. They shone brightly, as if chips of a broken Heineken bottle were stuck in the orbs to catch and reflect light. Emily knew it was a piss poor analogy, and a disturbing rather than beautiful image, but she was dying. She could do as she pleased. She gave him a sneer that was slightly less repellent than usual as he came in, and then turned to continue to watch the accumulating powder. He smiled merrily at her. “Good evening, Emily. How are you feeling?”

She grunted.

“Emily, my favorite part of our time together is the scintillating conversations we share. Honestly, I’ve never been so emotionally and intellectually engrossed before.” He was being scathingly sarcastic, but he gave her a quick wink to show it was all in fun. Emily did her best to hide her grin in her hands as she pretended to cough. The young man had traversed over to the machines that beeped endlessly and flashed all kinds of numbers and statistics that meant nothing to Emily. She watched him and had the urge to ask him a question. Despite it being completely out of character, Emily asked, “Did you always want to be a nurse, son?”

The young man was taken aback, clearly not anticipating any kind of conversation other than the usual nods and unintelligible moans and groans. “What?” he responded, his decorum completely leaving him in favor of shock.

“Men usually aren’t nurses. What brought you to this line of work?”

He laughed softly. “You know, you’re right, but no one’s ever actually asked me that before.” With the grin lingering about his lips, he took a few moments to give the question some serious thought. Then he said, “I’ve always wanted to be a writer.”

Emily was disappointed. Writing was not work by any stretch of the imagination. She had wanted him to say rancher, or laborer, or soldier, something exceedingly masculine and handsome and wonderful she could think about later. In essence, he had given her nothing to work with, and so she became bored with the conversation and turned her face away, back to the snow.

“What about you, Emily? What was your dream?”

There was no thinking; her response was instinctual, as effortless as breathing. “I wanted to be a singer.”

“Really?” the young man was amused by the answer. “I’ve got to be honest; you don’t strike me as a singer, Emily.”

She turned to him with cold eyes. “And why not? What the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway? I could sing as good as any of them! I could move and put on one hell of a show, I’ll have you know!”

The young man crossed his arms over his chest and gazed upon Emily with real interest. “So what happened? Why are you here instead of up on the stage?”

“Because I’m ninety years old and knocking on death’s door.”

He smiled ruefully. “You know what I mean, Emily. Why didn’t you ever become a singer?”

She sighed. “Well, I was making a name for myself at the local dive bars. I was packing places to capacity, causing fire hazards and whatnot. A couple of stories ran in the papers and this big shot from Los Angeles came to see me. He was impressed by what he saw and offered me a shot. I was to go to Los Angeles and become a backup singer for Frank Sinatra for a gig or two.”

“Frank Sinatra, really?” the young man asked. She had his full attention now as he sat on the edge of her bed, open-mouthed.

“Oh, sure,” she smiled. “I didn’t get to meet him or nothin’, because during my audition, I was nervous as hell. So I downed some whiskey to calm the nerves and pull it together. I must have overdone it, though, because I moseyed on up there and soon as I opened my pie hole, I vomited all over the mic.” Emily started chuckling. “Everyone was so disgusted. I was escorted out by these burley guys who didn’t even want to touch me. I didn’t even get a chance to collect my things.” Her chuckles had turned into hearty guffaws. She brought her wrinkled hands up to her wrinkled cheeks as her eyes wrinkled with merriment. She was genuinely laughing, something she hadn’t done since Lord knows how long. It was an infectious, melodious and beautiful sound and for a fleeting moment, the young man heard how Emily must have sounded when she sang and it was tremendous. His smile stretched wider and he joined in the laughter.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my sister and her husband and their children are visiting. I wouldn’t trade my time with them for anything in the world, but I was disappointed that I had to decline an invitation to the bar with friends. I’m worried about why I’m disappointed – I want it to be because my one friend is only visiting for a short time and I really would like to see him again before he returns home, but I’m afraid that I’m really disappointed because I actually believe I could go out and meet someone, and every time I deny myself such an opportunity, I’m signing my own death sentence of sorts. I know that’s melodramatic, but it’s eye-opening, none the less. I need to cut ties with juvenile notions and silly daydreams and become an adult. I am not going to meet the love of my life out at a bar because that is not the kind of girl that I am.

To be fair, bars are different from clubs. I’d probably fare better at a bar because no one’s grinding to a manufactured beat. Usually, everyone is just drinking and playing pool. That kind of crowd is definitely more my speed.

But what’s more important; spending time with family visiting from out-of-state, or tracking down a potential future husband? It is these kind of mundane struggles that life is filled with, and they create regrets. Anyway, that’s my belief. I am totally open to other explanations, and freely admit that I could be over-thinking things, as I am known to do.

I also do not want to be obsessed with romance. I want there to be more to me than stolen glances and cheap caresses.

Don’t we all?

PROMPT: A dentist is stabbed while he waits in line at the movies.

PIECE: Dr. Ellis was a dentist and a mediocre one at that. He wasn’t terrible but he didn’t have as many repeat patients as he would like. He wasn’t excellent and sometimes, he did forget to numb patients. He was competent, but not worthy of any particular praise. He was average and some nights, that fact bothered him. Some nights, the fact did not. Tonight belonged to the latter category; he was much too intoxicated to give a damn about anything, let alone his professional reputation.

Janice had left him. Dr. Ellis had come home and found that everything seemed somewhat off. The little hairs that were typically useless were standing at attention, so he decided to investigate. Setting his briefcase on the floor just inside the front door, his expensive shoes with the clicking soles traversed up the wooden staircase and kept left. He entered the master bedroom and went to the closet. Throwing the curtain doors aside, Dr. Ellis realized that it was as he feared; Janice’s things were gone. He moved to the dresser on the other side of the room and pulled out the top drawer on the right side – her side – only to find it empty. Stomach flipping end over end, he made a detour to the bathroom to deposit the contents of his churning intestines into the porcelain bowl. Wiping his mouth with his forearm, Dr. Ellis took shaking steps into the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water, spilling it slightly here and there, before sitting at the table. The top was marble and Janice had picked it out. He had admired her taste until now. Now, he wanted to smash the table to bits and chuck said bits at Janice’s face, marring her beauty with tiny nicks and cuts that drew blood. It was violent and animal-like and he should know better, but so fucking what? She had left him out of the blue – he was entitled to be bitter.

The tears and the trembling came and in this completely emasculated state, Dr. Ellis discovered the letter in the middle of the table. She started off with the typical bullshit: she didn’t know when they started to become strangers, only that it happened. She thought he was always far from home, even when he was beside her because his mind was always somewhere else, always moving a million miles a minute when she desperately needed him there, in the present, with her.

She took a paragraph to explain that she did not leave him because of problems between the sheets. She used five to seven sentences to be absolutely clear that she did not care that he had trouble getting it up more often than not. Janice wanted it to be known that she wasn’t that kind of shallow woman, and that Dr. Ellis should not feel like any less of a man.

But him not really providing for her, neglecting her and not proposing marriage – all of that should make him feel like a complete and total douche bag and less of a man, she wrote. Janice was devastated that she had wasted years on the dentist and didn’t intend to waste another second.

So she was gone.

Dr. Ellis got good and liquor-ed up and went to the movies. He hadn’t paid the cable bill, but needed some kind of mindless, visual stimuli to keep the pain at bay for at least another 90 minutes. Unfortunately, Dr. Ellis needed such relief on a rainy Friday night – everybody and their fucking brother was the local cineplex. He swayed in the never-ending line, blinking slowly and licking at his dry lips. He wondered if the woman in the ticket booth would notice that he was three sheets to the wind. If she did, would she say anything? It was hard to tell. If she was good-looking, should Dr. Ellis say something? Was that too soon

Dr. Ellis was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not hear the guttural screams from behind him. He did not catch the winking metal as it was caught in the overhead lights. It was not until he felt a searing pain in his side that he realized he had been stabbed. Clutching his side, he fell to the ground and looked up. A wild-looking woman with sweat-slicked hair and wide eyes stood above him and she was shrieking. Most of it was unintelligible. He was able to catch the words “no” and “Novocaine” and “numb” and “dick.”

Heh. So numb was Dr. Ellis to everything around him that he had lost his girlfriend and his professional reputation, and maybe even his life. Still, he couldn’t care.